joachim pawlik - zirkeltraining für die karriere
TRANSCRIPT
1
WORKOUT FOR YOUR CAREER
WORKOUT FO
R Y
OU
R CAREER
JOACHIM PAWLIK
Prepare yourself for
every opportunity
ahead
JO
AC
HIM
PA
WL
IKW
OR
KO
UT
FO
R Y
OU
R C
AR
EE
R
“It's not always easy to reflect on your personality and work on yourself. This book makes it
easier. Joachim Pawlik invites us into his world as a consultant, showing us the weaknesses
he’s observed while demonstrating how he and others have overcome them.”
Sven Odia, CEO Engel & Völkers
“Having failed as a footballer and skyrocketed as an entrepreneur – Joachim Pawlik knows
the meaning of defeat and victory, and what both of them are based on. His personal
experiences and concise recommendations make this valuable reading.”
Andreas Rettig, Football Manager and former DFL Managing Director
“This kind of workout training is an amazing way to help you figure out what you’re made of
and tap into your personal potential.”
Benjamin Adrion, founder of Viva con Agua
“I had some rather promising students; Joachim Pawlik was not necessarily one of them. I
didn't expect to one day read anything by him, of all people. What an impressive career and
engaging book!”
Mrs. D., former teacher at the Tonndorf Gymnasium
People looking to improve their athletic
performance take up a workout routine.
But what about those of us who want to
improve our career fitness?
Joachim Pawlik, a former professional
athlete and one of Germany’s leading
consultants for boosting managerial
performance and developing potentials,
demonstrates how to apply the circuit
training method to your professional life. He presents ten stations at which you learn
about the skills you need and how to develop them.
With Pawlik’s approach, you learn how to take genuine responsibility at those
moments when it matters most and how to grow your courage. You learn how to go
about practicing so that you can get the last ten percent out of yourself, and how you
can gain speed by thinking slowly. Each station features questions to reflect on and
exercises that challenge you to take a critical look at yourself and thereby improve
your flexibility, resilience, and performance – in your professional as well as your
personal life.
22
,00
€ (
D)
| 22
,70
€ (
A)
ISB
N 9
78-3
-00
-06
99
99
-3
2
WORKOUT FOR YOUR CAREER
3
WORKOUT FOR YOUR CAREER
JOACHIM PAWLIK
Prepare yourself for every opportunity ahead
4
110
987
ST
AT
ION
SRESPONSIBILITYTake it on 22
POWERStay grounded 180
TRUSTCultivate your empathy 160
BALANCETo be fast, think slow 142
KEEP AT ITYou can do it 126
5
23456
Warm up 7
Your personal goal collage 18
Cooling down 196
The story behind the book 199
About Joachim Pawlik 200
WILLPOWERDo today what makes a difference tomorrow 40
COURAGEBreak new ground 60
POWERLESSNESSRemain calm and in control 76
PRESSUREEmbrace your panic 90
PRACTICEWhat really matters: The last ten percent 106
6
The work including all its parts is protected by copyright. Any exploitation is not permitted
without the consent of PAWLIK Consultants GmbH. This applies in particular to duplications,
translations, microfilming and storage and processing in electronic systems.
PAWLIK Consultants GmbH expressly points out that, insofar as this book contains external
links, it could only view these up to the time of the book‘s publication. PAWLIK Consultants
GmbH has no influence on later changes. Any liability of PAWLIK Consultants GmbH is
therefore excluded.
2nd edition 2021
English licensed edition for Pawlik Consultants GmbH, Hamburg.
Courtesy of Murmann Publishers GmbH, Hamburg
The original edition was published in May 2021
under the title „Zirkeltraining für die Karriere“
by Murmann Publishers GmbH
© Murmann Publishers GmbH 2021
Translation: Neuwasser Language Services, Berlin
Editing: Travod International Ltd, London
Printing and binding: Steinmeier GmbH & Co.KG, Deiningen
Printed in Germany
ISBN 978-3-00-069999-3
WARM UP
7
We were a group of
kayakers in Austra-
lia, with different
levels of experi-
ence, and with
different kinds of
boats. I was in a two-person
kayak, with a helmswoman in the rear
seat, and me in the front. At the point
where we launched our boats into the
water, the river was quite broad. Our
trip began in a leisurely way, with just
a few rocks and some turbulence that
was easily managed. It was a fantastic
experience and completely idyllic for
at least that moment. But then the
riverbed narrowed, and the water
started rushing louder and louder
around us. The narrower the channel
got, the more furious it became. The
river was changing at a pace that I
hadn’t expected. I still remember how
my heart sped up when I suddenly saw
a long descent ahead of us. Nothing to
see but white water. And then behind
us, we heard a scream. Involuntarily, I
twisted around to check on the
others. Their inflatable boat had
flipped. My helmswoman took no
notice of them, instead shouting at
me: “Keep going!” Our speed was
rising, and we had hardly any time to
avoid the obstacles – rocks, branches,
and sudden drops – in our way. Given
the strong current, I intuitively decid-
ed to slow us down, and stuck the
paddle into the water as a gentle
brake. That proved to be a dangerous
mistake. We nearly capsized, and from
behind me again came this scathing
cry: “Are you crazy? Paddle, man,
paddle! Faster!” So I paddled, and to
my huge relief, I saw that the boat was
coming back under our control. The
more power I put into it, the faster we
went, and the easier and safer we got
through the rapids. Every time we hit
another patch, my fellow paddler
shouted from behind me: “Paddle, Joa-
chim!” I gave it all I had because I had
understood a crucial fact: You can
steer and keep control over what
happens to you in the flow only if
you’re moving faster than the current.
I often think back about that experi-
ence. Man, that was an absolute blast!
Over the years, I’ve come to regard it
as a core metaphor for life: If I let
myself drift, I wind up being at the
mercy of outside forces. There’s a
serious risk of capsizing, and no
matter what, I lose control over what
happens. I won’t be able to avoid
obstacles. It will be nearly impossible
WARM UP
8
for me to reach quieter sections of the
river, even if I can already see them
ahead of me. I have to paddle. It is only
then that I can live a self-determined
life.
This conviction has always proven to
be well-founded for me, both as a
person and as an entrepreneur. But
it’s not easy to put into practice. Over
the past 25 years, I’ve helped many
people take their careers into their
own hands and supported them in
achieving their goals. In my experi-
ence, we all get into situations in
which it isn’t easy to keep our bear-
ings, keep driving ahead and keep
actively managing our professional
progress.
I often hear feedback like this: “Why
should I set goals for myself? Why
should I plan? It’s only going to turn
out differently anyway!” People talk to
me about accidents and random
events, about life circumstances that
change, and about the diverse influ-
ences that determine our lives. I then
try to clear up a fundamental misun-
derstanding. You don’t plan or set
goals for yourself with the idea that
everything will certainly play out that
way. The sentence “Planning replaces
chance with error” describes the
relationship quite well. We make plans
in order to learn from the deviations
because every plan contains assump-
tions about how good we are, what we
can do, and what we can’t. We assess
the relevant circumstances and take
into account our resources and
motivation. When the plan doesn’t
come together, this teaches us what
we were wrong about. That’s of
incalculable benefit in our efforts to
improve ourselves. We should keep
our own development moving at a
rapid pace, so that life doesn’t pass us
by. We cannot make our progress
dependent on benevolent bosses,
good companies, or random challen-
ges. We have to take it into our own
hands. We can then at least reduce
the influence of fortune and chance,
which play a role in every life.
This book is intended to offer you the
tools to develop yourself on your own
terms. It offers you the essence of
what I learned over the course of a
successful and fulfilling professional
life. Now, I want to share this know-
ledge with you because I believe that
this is the perfect moment to do so.
WARM UP
9
My name is Joachim Pawlik. Over the
past three decades, I built a consulting
firm focused on personal and organi-
zational development and personal
consulting. We use detailed methods
to analyze what drives people, what
prevents them from moving forward,
how they develop their potential, and
how they can be used optimally within
their companies. In this way, we help
organizations become more success-
ful, just like management consultants
do.
Have you already used consultants in
your company? Or do you know a
consultant personally? In most cases,
people use their own past experiences
as a guide when trying to form a
picture of someone new. This is
perhaps the way you’re trying to
pigeonhole me right now. Many people
associate a consultant with a certain
kind of person. It is often someone
who showed considerable foresight
early on, who already knew before
they graduated from college exactly
which company they wanted to work
at. They already had a signed contract
in hand, and the last bits of university
work were purely a formality. Even in
their high school days, they were
already at the top of the pack: highly
organized, mature for their age, reflec-
tive, and ambitious.
I’ll tell you right off that I was never
like that. If anything, I was the polar
opposite. To be honest, I only set one
record during my high school days,
which was getting the absolute lowest
possible passing grade on the univer-
sity entrance exam (it was also not
easy to get a grade point average
much lower than mine). The teachers
obviously didn’t find me particularly
convincing, and I felt the same way
about them. At any rate, I didn’t make
much of myself at school at that point.
I already had other plans. I wanted to
be a professional soccer player. On
the field, I was successful. That’s
where people knew who I was. After
leaving school, I entered a training
program, and soon won a contract with
FC St. Pauli. Many of those around me
at the time also believed that I’d make
the leap to the peak of the profes-
sional soccer world into Germany’s top
league. They believed in me, and I did
too. Even today, I can say that there
was good reason for this. After all, I
had the technical potential, a good
10
understanding of the game, and the
desire to train. I seemingly had
everything that I needed. Yet it didn’t
work out. After just one season, it was
over.
At the time, I was of course extremely
disappointed. I had imagined my
future on the soccer field, under the
bright lights. And then all of a sudden,
my big dream, on which I’d bet every-
thing in my life up to that point, was
shattered. That was a really hard time
for me. What bothered me almost
more than anything was that I simply
didn’t know why it had happened.
Aside from the coach who didn’t
appreciate me, the other players who
wouldn’t pass the ball to me enough,
and so on. But none of these explana-
tions answered the most essential
question: Why didn’t they?
In at least one respect, I was lucky in
this bitter experience: By getting
weeded out early, I at least didn’t lose
much time before I had to admit that I
had failed. That was part of the game.
Professional sports can be unforgiv-
ing. It quickly becomes apparent if you
have what it takes to rise to the top,
as I had wanted so badly, or if you
don’t. In the business life, there is typ-
ically a much greater risk of following
a chosen path for a long period of
time, despite having no chance of
success.
I’ve seen this often enough as a
consultant. People find so many
excuses for their failures. “My boss
doesn’t like me,” “Our executives
never think beyond the short term,”
“Actually, they promised it to me,” or
“The market conditions just aren’t
right.” I hear these and other seem-
ingly conclusive explanations over and
over from people who are ostensibly
perfect victims. In these conversa-
tions, you realize that most of us are
very good at blaming others. We are
incredibly creative in finding others to
hold accountable for our own failings.
However, our analysis of what we
ourselves might not have done right,
or of what we might have missed, is
correspondingly weak. Of course,
taking the blame onto yourself hurts.
Determining after 20 years that
you’ve been taken advantage of,
because you’ve allowed your manager
to treat you badly, is incredibly
demoralizing. It eats away at your
WARM UP
11
self-confidence. But as much as I can
understand this reluctance to taking
responsibility, it remains problematic.
It pushes aside the crucial conclusion:
that this is the wrong way for us, and
we ourselves must change it. That’s
why so many people wait patiently and
even romanticize their position until
everyone else has passed them
by – or until they’re simply let go.
Fortunately, the sudden and involun-
tary end of my professional soccer or,
as we call it here in Europe, “football”
career forced me to turn the page
right away. That’s how I came, at a
relatively early age, to the profession
that still fascinates me today. I’ve
always regarded my work with people
as a privilege. For me, there was and is
no more rewarding task than actively
supporting people in recognizing and
fully exploiting their potential. I love
being able to help as someone first
discovers their own entirely personal
path to success, and then systemati-
cally follows it, in the process of
becoming the backbone of their
organization. I’ve experienced for
myself how great that is, and at the
same time how difficult it can be.
In my current role as a staff-develop-
ment consultant, I run into versions of
my own question – of how I had
ultimately failed as a professional
athlete – in countless other people’s
stories. I’ve met many people in my
professional life who have yearned for
their dreams to come true with the
same passion I felt for my football
career. In most cases, however, these
dreams didn‘t come true without some
effort. Only a very few reached their
goal without some strategic prepara-
tion. And the analysis of these few
triumphant exceptions shows that
these people were often simply lucky.
I want to spare you from this lottery of
life. Please don’t misunderstand me. I
love the dream of success, and I know
there’s sometimes good reason to
indulge in the idea of making a
difference in the world with your own
life. It can happen that way. But
certainly not automatically. I really
can’t stand promises like, “You just
have to believe in it and then anything
is possible.” Over time, I’ve advised
many people, in many different
careers. I’ve always found that
12
everything we want to achieve and
everything we dream of have their
price. There are certain requirements
we have to fulfil in order for a career
to be sustainably successful. These
are often overlooked, or at least
misjudged.
As a young athlete, I myself definitely
lacked this realistic assessment of
what had to be done in order to get to
the very top. I didn’t know what else
was part of it other than practicing a
lot. I didn’t have anyone to tell me
what sacrifices I should have been
making to get more out of myself.
Pulling extra shifts, making sure to eat
a healthy diet, and getting enough
sleep – all things that are more normal
today. I didn’t realize that I lacked the
personal skills that I needed to earn
my position on the team. When I
learned much later that my teammates
often didn’t pass the ball to me
because they thought I was arrogant, I
was shocked. I’d never seen myself
like that. Looking back, it’s clear that I
hadn’t prepared the way for my own
career well enough and hadn’t paid
the price for my greatest goal. And it is
no wonder as I didn’t even know what
that price was.
Learning from top athletes: The power of workouts
This book is designed to illustrate the
price we have to pay for success. If
your goal is to achieve great things,
there are some basic qualities you’re
going to need, no matter what field
you’re in. With the help of this book,
you’ll be able to hone and develop
these qualities, which are the personal
skills and abilities applied in dealing
with other people. I’ve compiled what I
consider to be the ten most important
qualities. Are they all that we need to
bring us forward? Well, I can’t prove it
scientifically. Still, in my 25 years of
professional experience, they are the
essential factors I’ve seen to be
present in all long-term careers
associated with a fulfilled life.
We’ve developed an exercise format
based on the fitness program known
in the world of sports as “circuit
training.” Generation X readers might
remember it from their days in school.
I know, there are probably much more
up-to-date formats out there these
days. I hope you’ll forgive me for
sticking to this one anyway. I prefer it
because it doesn’t gloss over the fact
that anyone who wants to achieve
WARM UP
13
great things is going to have to work
very hard. In classic circuit training, a
series of different stations that
includes benches, boxes, mats, and
the like is set up in a circle. Partici-
pants spread out over the stations
where they complete training modules
that usually last around 30 seconds
each. For example, they might begin
by doing sit-ups until the trainer
blows the whistle for a short break. At
that point, everyone moves on to the
next station, say, to the benches to do
some stepping exercises, and so on. I
don’t know about you but, for me,
circuit training was always pretty
exhausting when I did it right. To this
day, many professional athletes use
the approach because it shapes them
into more all-round competitors.
Strength in different muscle groups,
endurance, coordination, and mental
acuity – all of these qualities grow
from station to station. It trains their
basic skills and prepares them for
situations they’re not yet familiar with,
ones that only arise in the act of
playing the game itself. We’ve de-
signed our workout in precisely the
same way. The only difference is that
instead of preparing you for the next
game of sports, it prepares you for
professional success and leading a
happy and fulfilling life. Our workout is
designed to sharpen your ability to
identify and seize the opportunities
that come your way, even if you can’t
see them yet. We want you to be able
to overcome the potential obstacles in
your career and weather any setbacks
along the way. But we also want you to
be able to resist the seduction of
quick-fix opportunities that won’t
serve you well in the long term.
Why I’ve written this bookI began this publication by saying that
the time is right for this book. In fact,
for several years now, I’ve been
thinking about combining what I’ve
learned through my own experience
with the latest research on personality
development. But why do so now?
Because the pace of change in the
world is faster than ever before.
Everything around us is moving at
breakneck speed. As ever more is
demanded of us, it’s increasingly
difficult to predict what lies around
the corner. The next opportunity or
the next setback can arise at any
moment. But hasn’t that always been
the case, you say? Maybe it has. If you
like to organize things in advance as
14
much as I do, you know that plans
rarely work out as intended. Today, the
pace of change, and the impact this
change has on our lives, is unprece-
dented. Marking a turning point, the
COVID-19 pandemic instantaneously
turned everything in our world upside
down. Once highly sought-after dream
jobs suddenly became dead-end jobs.
Imagine the horror of the pilots in
training who were advised in Septem-
ber 2020 by Lufthansa to pursue a
different career due to the lack of
available jobs for pilots in the years to
come. On the face of it, until that
point, these young people had done
everything right. They had worked
hard to get there and make it through
a brutally tough selection process.
The path ahead seemed clear with no
barriers to enjoying a prestigious
career as a flight captain with a high
salary. And then, suddenly, it was all
over. This is just one of many exam-
ples. You’ve heard similar stories from
people in the restaurant and hospitali-
ty sectors as well as tourism and
culture. But there are also those “dark
horses” of the crisis, who’ve done very
well, such as the suppliers of protec-
tive masks and disinfectants, or
companies providing hardware for
home office workstations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has expedited
a trend that began with digitalization.
We can no longer reliably plan our
career paths. We have no idea what the
future will look like and what it will
require of us. It’s increasingly difficult
for us to plan our next steps because
tomorrow may not be what it is today.
Change is happening – rapidly.
We have to accept and embrace this
fact. And we should learn to paddle
faster, so that we can be one of the
winners of the future. More so than
ever before, our chances of success
depend on who we are as a person.
And workout exercises give you the
opportunity to precisely practice
these skills. At each station, you
familiarize yourself with an aspect of
your personality that is relevant to
your success by finding out exactly
where you stand with regard to this
characteristic. Doing targeted exer-
cises helps you improve your personal
skills. You learn how to practice more
effectively, how to build courage,
strengthen your willpower and main-
tain empathy in difficult situations.
WARM UP
15
You learn as well that people trust you
and will follow your lead, even when
you’re overwhelmed by an onslaught
of new challenges.
Some stations will be easier for you
than others. It’s the same with sports,
where you might prefer doing three
times as many high box jumps than
even one set of push-ups. Your
preferences for specific exercises say
a lot about your underlying motivation,
from which you draw much of your
energy. For some, it’s the desire to
prove to be influential, for others to
maintain social bonds, while others are
driven by the will to be the best at
whatever they’re doing. There are
three basic motives that give us
strength: power, affiliation, and
achievement. People who are highly
motivated by achievement want to
understand things more deeply, test
their own abilities and develop them
further. They want to be better and
more efficient than others. People
motivated by affiliation are primarily
interested in the ties associated with
social bonds and a sense of closeness
and belonging. These individuals do
not seek competition; they aim to
cooperate. And when they find
themselves in a situation in which
they can, all is fine. People with a
strong power-oriented motive like to
lead the way and influence others. In
other words, they like to make deci-
sions. But nobody has only one
motive. It’s more a matter of which
motive is predominant and how
pronounced the others are.
If you’re very achievement-oriented,
you’ll likely prove successful rather
quickly at the “practice” station. If
relationships with others are your
priority, the “trust” station will appeal
to you. For the power-hungry among
us, the “powerlessness” station is a
no-brainer. Feeling a sense of control
over their lives and recognizing their
decision-making authority – these are
things they’re comfortable with.
This book is structured to allow each
station to stand on its own as a
subject. Readers don’t have to read
the contents in the order they appear.
If you’re interested in a particular
topic, you can skip straight to it. You
can read and apply that section
independently, separate from the
others. But do yourself a favor and
don’t make the mistake of focusing
16
only on the exercises you already feel
confident about. I don’t buy into the
idea of prioritizing one’s strengths.
You might excel in some areas, but if
you don’t learn to do well in others,
you may never achieve your goals.
Instead, you should give your person-
ality the full attention that it de-
serves.
Figure out where you want to go You could simply start right in on
making yourself fit for your goals. But
allow me to ask one question first: Are
you sure about those goals?
When I work with executives, it often
emerges in the course of the conver-
sation that they’ve taken on tasks
that don’t actually interest them. In
these cases, I often hear things like, “I
couldn’t turn down an offer like that.”
I rarely meet people who have the
courage to turn down supposed
opportunities because deep inside
themselves, they want something
much more. Talented people in
particular rise rapidly through the
ranks, and simply continue along their
path to success – until one day, they
realize that what they’re doing has
nothing to do with their inner nature
or desires. There’s a certain emptiness
at the end of careers like this.
Why didn’t they start looking at things
differently earlier? It’s not like they
hadn’t thought about their futures.
They have intense conversations with
their parents, friends, and partners
about what suits them. They reach out
to people who have experience and
who mean well by them. This is an
understandable approach, but it can
be misleading because in fact no one
can see inside of them. No one should
take the decision about your own
goals in life away from you. Nor should
you attach too much importance to
school grades or other external
systems of assessment. Think about
my school career. What else could I
have done after that? Therefore,
before you start with the workout, I
want to encourage you to review your
goals.
For some people, the midlife crisis is
the first time they honestly examine
their real desires and opportunities.
WARM UP
17
Then, the right questions are asked:
“Why haven’t I made more of my life?
How can I still become genuinely
happy?” But this reflection comes at
an inopportune time, in an uncon-
trolled way, when something is already
going badly. After years or decades,
people then suddenly feel that they’ve
been going in the wrong direction all
along. This perception can lead them
into a knee-jerk reaction. Without
stopping to consider things further,
they throw away their careers – or
worse. It’s a fiasco.
You can avoid this by reviewing your
path in a planned way. I’d like to
present you with one simple mecha-
nism that will help you in this regard.
It’s called the “goal collage.”
This tool will help you find your path.
Your very own! At any point in your life,
it can help you discover for yourself
what really interests and fulfills you.
Then, you can prepare intelligently to
realize your intentions. You are
unique. Make something of it. The
responsibility and capability to do so
both lie with you. This is an incredible
opportunity.
18
Identify your priori-
ties and create your
personal goal
collage.
If you know what you
want to achieve, and
are confident about it, you
can skip this exercise. For most
people, however, it’s not easy to
determine what really motivates them
and what they want to achieve in life
– at least it’s not as easy as it seems.
Even if we have an answer ready, it
may not be the right one. Sometimes,
we talk ourselves into believing
something that’s been instilled in us
by our upbringing and our social
environment. For example, people who
have grown up in status-oriented
families may seek to accumulate great
amounts of influence, even though
they may subconsciously be very
strongly relationship motived.
In doing so, they neglect their need for
community. This may be why they
continually feel exhausted and
dissatisfied, without knowing exactly
why. These signals are difficult to
interpret. They come from the sub-
conscious.
Subconscious motives drive our
personality over the long term. They
come to light when we look for
challenges to fulfill on our own,
outside of our obligations. Otherwise,
they remain hidden, overlaid by the
conscious motives that control our
immediate actions.
It’s good when unconscious and
conscious motives are largely in
harmony with each other. In some
situations, however, they may and
must diverge. In times of crisis, for
example, an employee that is very
relationship or power motivated must
go beyond the actions that would do
his motive structure good over the
long run. He must temporarily accom-
modate himself to doing a number of
things that are contrary to his inner
drives. Such phases are always
necessary to achieve goals. But if we
are constantly working in opposition
to our inner desires and needs, it costs
us too much energy, draining us.
YOUR PERSONAL
GOAL COLLAGE
YOUR PERSONAL gOAL COLLAgE
19
Therefore, we should get to know our
genuine sources of strength.
Using a goal collage is an easy way of
accessing your subconscious mind. To
do this, climb into an imaginary
helicopter. From this bird’s-eye
perspective, it’s easier to identify
where it’s taking you. You can see
your current priorities more clearly,
and question them as needed. The
goal collage uses pictures to open a
creative pathway to your hidden
desires and needs.
What do you need for this exercise?
One or more sheets of white paper
– ideally flip chart sheets, or alterna-
tively in the DIN A3 size. In addition,
you’ll want magazines with a diverse
range of pictures, along with scissors,
a glue stick, colored pencils, and
felt-tip pens. Start by asking yourself
a few specific questions (choose the
ones that appeal to you):
• What do I want to achieve in my
life?
• What is important now, and what
will be important in the future?
• What should set me apart?
• What kind of manager do
I want to be?
• What do I want to achieve in my
current position?
• What do I need to feel generally
successful, happy, and fulfilled?
From the magazines, cut or tear out all
the images, words, text excerpts, and
quotes that appeal to you, and that
you associate with the questions
listed above (or your own selection).
Which pictures and sentences give
you a good feeling when you see or
read them?
Of course, you can also draw pictures
or write things yourself.
Arrange your pictures and sentences
on the paper so the result feels right
to you. Give your imagination free rein.
Don’t let yourself be constrained by
everyday requirements or your current
situation. Glue your arrangement down
only once it feels completely right. The
best way to determine whether you’ve
gained access to your goals is by
presenting your collage to someone
20
else. You’ll immediately note whether
your words are flowing naturally or
not. If yes, then these are your
desires. But if you feel uncomfortable
doing this, your image probably still
reflects too many external influences.
Wait a few days before coming back to
your creation. Now look at your
collage. Let the images have an effect
on you and then ask yourself the
following questions:
1. WHAT GOAL IS EMERGING FROM THIS COLLAGE? FORMULATE IT. GO THROUGH THE WORKOUT TRAINING PROCESS FOR IT.
YOUR PERSONAL gOAL COLLAgE
21
2. HOW CAN I KEEP VISUALIZING MY GOAL OVER TIME? WHAT COULD I USE AS A REMINDER OF THE COLLAGE (A PHOTO OF THE COLLAGE ON MY MOBILE PHONE, A POST-IT NOTE ON THE COMPUT-ER, A SUITABLE QUOTE, A POST CARD, ETC.)?
Back when I initially launched myself
into self-employment, I made a collage
of my own for the first time in my life.
And you know what I did with it? I
hung it over my bed. I’m almost
uncomfortable saying this today, but it
helped. I’m not a morning person. The
alarm kills me every time. So it was
always the same procedure for me:
The alarm goes off, I’m annoyed, but I
look at the collage, which reminds me
why the alarm is going off, and then I
get up feeling motivated. I know that’s
a bit peculiar. But the collage works no
matter regardless of when you look at
it. Do it every now and then!
1:RESPONSIB ILITY
1:RESPONSIB ILITYTAKE IT ON
24
“It is our fault
– and that means
my fault.” These are the
unequivocal words delivered by Liver-
pool FC Coach Jürgen Klopp in January
2021 after his team’s embarrassing
defeat at the hands of a total outsider.
In making this statement, he defended
his players and drew the fire of the
press entirely onto himself. People
who’ve been following Klopp’s career
will know that this has been his credo
from the very beginning: “It is always
my fault, the things that don’t work are
my fault.”1 It’s an approach that has led
him to become the first person to twice
be named FIFA Coach of the Year.2
But is this the norm? Unfortunately not!Klopp is famous for having once
referred to himself as “the normal one.”
This is clearly an understatement, since
there is very little that is “normal” about
the Stuttgart-born coach. Unfortunate-
ly, very few people – let alone Premier
League coaches – are as elegant as he
when it comes to demonstrating
accountability. His ability to get the
best out of his players is almost unpar-
alleled. The enthusiasm and emotions
that he displays on the sidelines are
legendary. Still, what truly sets Klopp
apart from his colleagues is his uncon-
ditional willingness to accept responsi-
bility not only for his team’s victories
but more importantly for their defeats.
What a contrast to the behavior
displayed recently by Joachim Löw,
head coach of Germany’s national
soccer team. In November 2020, during
the team’s historic 0:6 defeat against
Spain – the greatest loss by a German
national team in 89 years – Löw sat
lethargically on the bench and subse-
quently sought responsibility for the
disaster everywhere but in himself.
“Everything was awful,”3 he said,
dismissing the entire team wholesale.
After the match, Berlin’s Tagesspiegel
newspaper dubbed the disheartened
national coach – who led his team to
IN DEFEAT,
ACCOUNTABILITY
IS KEY
RESPONSIBILITYTake iT on
25
the World Cup title in 2014, but now
appeared unable to inspire them during
a period of crisis – “der Erschlaffte,”
which means something along the lines
of “the wilted one” or “the one who’s
gone limp.”4
Leaders suffer together with their teamsDuring moments of great pain, strong
leadership shows its mettle by display-
ing a 100 percent willingness to assume
responsibility. This is an approach from
which everyone involved benefits – not
only team members and the employer
but also the leaders themselves. In
soccer, as in any sport, a team that
knows it won’t be left alone, even in
defeat, will play with more confidence
and élan. Each individual player will be
more willing to take responsibility for
events on the field. They will work hard-
er to achieve collective success. This
principle can also be applied 100
percent to other areas of life. As far as
I’m concerned, Jürgen Klopp is an
extremely inspiring example of what
leaders can achieve when they accept
responsibility. He is a true role model in
the world of sport but in many other
areas as well.
Defeat is the true test of enduranceWhen employees express an eagerness
to take on responsibility, it’s music to
our ears. These are the individuals who
want to go above and beyond the
regular call of duty. They believe in a
winning future and are convinced
they’ve got what it takes to make it a
reality. Taking on responsibility sug-
gests that a person has expertise in
coming up with solutions. And this is
precisely what everybody wants. But
the moment of truth only really comes
when an expected success fails to
materialize, when things get real tight,
and we have to identify the root causes
of a failure. How do employees react in
this situation? Like Jürgen Klopp? Do
they say: “I know which mistakes I made
and what I need to work on.” Or do they
look for the problems in everyone but
themselves? You can probably guess
what the majority of people do in such
situations. They don’t see any fault in
themselves. At least not with regard to
the root of the problem. In my experi-
ence, Klopp certainly isn’t “the normal
one,” as most people respond very
differently in this regard, unfortunately.
Why do so few people follow Klopp’s
recipe for success? Why do so few
people take responsibility for failure?
26
A lot of people believe it’s better to pass
off responsibility to others and keep
their own noses clean. This is a sorely
misguided belief, but I’ll come back to
that later. At this point, it’s not the real
problem. There’s another phenomenon
that’s much more interesting and
relevant.
The fact is that most people are actually
unaware that they might have messed
up and missed something essential.
They are convinced they’ve done
everything in their power to achieve
success. For them, it’s impossible to
even imagine that their efforts were not
enough. They insist the problem must
lie somewhere else.
Better than the others: The “above-average effect”International research suggests that
this blind-spot behavior is caused by
the so-called “above-average effect.”
According to this theory, we human
beings notoriously overestimate our
own contribution to the course of
events. As the term implies, we tend to
see ourselves as being a cut above the
average person in terms of our intellec-
tual and various other abilities. And
several studies have shown this
cognitive bias to be widespread. For
example, a survey of Swedish students
showed that 77 percent of the respon-
dents considered themselves to be
above-average drivers in terms of
safety.5 In a survey of US college
professors, 94 percent of the respon-
dents were convinced that they worked
harder than their colleagues.6 Another
study showed that when couples were
asked about their respective share of
the housework, their combined totals
often came to a sum of well over 100
percent. You don’t need to be a math
genius to recognize that self-assess-
ments such as these cannot possibly
correspond to reality.7 How can almost
everyone be better than average? The
total amount of housework can never
exceed 100 percent, no matter what it
feels like. In other words, self-exagger-
ation is very common. Still, this is not –
as we might expect – because we all
desire to make ourselves look better
than others. Study participants would
derive no benefit from that. Instead, the
fact is that their responses are authen-
tic reflections of what they actually
believe to be true.
This phenomenon derives from an
egocentric worldview that is nearly
inescapable for us as human beings.
Indeed, there is never a moment when
we’re not playing the leading role in our
lives and viewing the world from our
RESPONSIBILITYTake iT on
27
own limited perspective. Every day, we
are directly aware of all the things that
we accomplish: we get up early, work at
full speed in the office, do some more
work at home in the evening, leverage
our expertise and our networks, think a
lot about the best solutions to prob-
lems, develop great new ideas, etc.
What we tend to forget is that almost
everybody else is doing the same thing
within the scope of their own means!
This leads to a situation in which we are
much more aware of our own efforts
and commitment than we are of other
people’s contributions.
We automatically deem our own work as
being more significant than that of our
colleagues. But what happens when the
success we expected doesn’t come to
fruition? Well, in that case, most of us
think it’s probably our colleagues’ fault;
they must not have done their job
properly. But it’s not some sort of
malicious intent that prompts us to
think: If only those other people had
achieved as much as I did! If only the
circumstances hadn’t been so difficult!
We’re simply making a number of
assumptions that – although they seem
entirely logical to us – actually block
our view of our own contribution to an
unexpected failure.
We give 100 percent. More is not
possible. The idea that we might be to
blame for something implies that we are
or were not up to the task. Who among
us wants to admit that?
In my experience, the only people
capable of realistically judging their
share in events are people who are
mildly depressed. These individuals
often correctly recognize the full
complexity of interconnected circum-
stances. However, this doesn’t neces-
sarily mean that they’re better able to
improve the situation and get things
going again but on the contrary. A
person who sees themselves as a cog in
the wheel will not take it upon them-
selves to set things in motion again.
On the other hand, if you see yourself
as being relevant to a situation, you
activate your potential. It will give you
that initial boost of courage that you
need to try and make a change. You’ll
be more likely to take things in hand. A
dose of overconfidence can prompt us
to tackle obstacles we would otherwise
shy away from if we took a more modest
approach. In other words, in and of
itself, a dose of overconfidence is not a
bad sign at all. In fact, none of the
world’s great inventions and discoveries
would have succeeded had the people
behind them been plagued by a fully
28
realistic assessment of themselves.
Unfortunately, when things don’t go
well, this tendency to overestimate our
abilities is no longer helpful. At this
point, the principle of action is reversed.
In other words, in order to come up with
tangible solutions, we have to con-
sciously work against the tendency to
overestimate ourselves and instead
actively seek out and find our faults.
The power of exuberance has its limitsI already spoke briefly above about my
foray into Germany’s second division of
professional soccer. When I signed my
first contract, my confidence about my
future role on the field was very high,
and that helped for a while. Who knows
if anyone would have even offered me a
contract had I not been compelled
forward by my palpable egocentric
drive? I was hungry and self-confident,
and that’s exactly how I presented
myself to others. After the initial rush,
however, I failed to take the second and
decisive step. When things started
going downhill, I refused to assume any
responsibility – for the game, but above
all for my own growth. If I was sitting on
the bench and my team was losing,
everything was perfectly clear to me;
the coach was obviously making
mistakes. I could see problems every-
where, just not anywhere near me.
Instead of reflecting on my own deficits
and facing up to the challenges I wasn’t
actually prepared for, I came up with
alibis. If I had approached my coach and
asked for some feedback about what I
was doing wrong and where I had to
improve so as to be able to help the
team, I might have been given the
opportunity to work directly on myself.
But I didn’t ask these questions.
Instead, I just continued on with the
assumption that it was the coach’s
responsibility to say something to me.
This allowed me to completely avoid
taking any responsibility for my own de-
velopment and instead put that respon-
sibility into someone else’s hands. The
result was stagnation and ultimately the
end of my career in professional soccer.This failure allowed me to learn a very
important lesson that would be incredi-
bly useful to me later on in my profes-
sional career and private life. As most of
us now know, you learn more from one
massive failure than from ten big
victories – but only if you take respon-
sibility for that failure.
Not an easy stepOf course, it’s never easy to face our
own shortcomings and take responsibil-
ity for defeat. When we’re asked to pay
RESPONSIBILITYTake iT on
29
the price for our mistakes, it automati-
cally puts us in a painful situation, and
it’s no wonder so many people push
back. It’s so much easier to blame
others for failure. In the long run,
however, the wiser decision is almost
always to set out on the arduous path
of taking responsibility.
Individuals who are capable of accepting
responsibility for failures are also
capable of maturing and developing
further. Perhaps more importantly,
however, is that these individuals will
usually also get the chance to do
precisely that. Imagine the following
situation: Something is going fundamen-
tally wrong at your business and you
approach the senior manager. At this
point, there are two possible scenarios
that could occur. Which of the following
personalities would you put your money
on? On the person who admits their
mistake and starts talking about how
they’ll do things better going forward?
Or the person who insists they’ve always
done everything right and makes it clear
that the others on the team need to
finally step up and improve?
Most executives prefer the first
approach, especially if they see a clear
and potentially successful approach to
improvement. They would most likely
inquire as to what the senior manager
intends to change and, if the solution
sounds plausible, give that person a
second chance. They would assume
that the person has matured and
perhaps even learned a valuable lesson
from the mistake they just made.
Former IBM head Tom Watson is famous
for his response to such a situation at
the company in the 1950s. After an
employee made a very expensive
mistake, Watson was asked if he was
going to fire the individual: “No,” he
replied, “I just spent $600,000 training
him – why would I want somebody to
hire his experience.” Considering how
much $600,000 was worth back then,
it’s no wonder this story continues to
resonate to this day.
People who realize and admit that
they’ve made a mistake and pledge to
do things differently in the future are
showing strength, not weakness. In
doing so, they create an atmosphere of
trust. These individuals exude a
positive presence that won us over
when they first expressed a desire to
assume responsibility, namely that they
want to achieve a better outcome.
If you’ve made a mistake, use the
opportunity to mature and develop a
greater sense of your own responsibili-
ty. You don’t need to be ashamed or be
sheepish in admitting your error. As
long as you learn from your mistakes,
you should approach them as an
30
essential part of getting better at
whatever it is you do.
In this vein, it is vital that you identify
mistakes as soon as possible and let
them be known. If weeks have already
passed since you made the mistake, the
personal damage to you will be signifi-
cant. At that point, it will no longer be
about taking responsibility; instead, it
will start to look like a confession by
someone who’s been caught red-hand-
ed and tried in vain to eschew account-
ability.
Why it’s especially difficult for top managers to acknowledge their own failuresUnfortunately, people in top managerial
positions are often particularly inept at
questioning themselves, preferring
instead to pass the buck to colleagues
that they feel hold the blame. There are
two key reasons for this conundrum.
First, the greater a manager’s scope of
responsibility, the greater the factors
that play a role in achieving success. In
other words, top managers have more
employees who might make mistakes,
they supervise a larger number of
countries in which conditions can
deteriorate and they are responsible for
more products and services that can go
off the rails. As a result, some managers
insist that they simply cannot by any
stretch of the imagination take respon-
sibility for particular failures. They
defend themselves by arguing that
there were simply too many factors
beyond their control. Individuals who
feel this way about their jobs need to
accept the fact that they are simply not
up to the task they have taken on. They
need to start figuring out why they took
on more than they could chew in the
first place, and then adjust their
approach as quickly as possible. Would
you like to know what my experience is
in such cases? Excuses like these are
almost always followed by some kind of
career setback. In other words, if you
feel this way about your job, you should
take it as a warning sign. Indeed, every
step you take in your career will bring a
greater level of responsibility. The risk
of feeling overwhelmed by your job
increases dramatically with every new
rung on the career ladder, as does the
pressure associated with increasing
expectations.
The second reason why top managers
overlook their own faults lies in the
considerable degree of success they’ve
had so far, which leads them to overes-
timate themselves more than others.
The fact that they’ve been able to
prevail over so many competitors
prompts them to believe that they must
RESPONSIBILITYTake iT on
31
be superior to others. And it’s true that
since starting their career these
individuals have left hundeds or
perhaps even thousands of people
behind them.
Not every boss takes the time to fully
realize that his or her former competi-
tors might actually have just as much
talent and ability to be leaders in their
fields, not to mention that these people
have actually contributed significantly
to the success of the venture. Many
leading executives underestimate the
sheer luck that helped catapult them to
the top – a degree of luck that other
candidates simply didn’t have. Yet
another factor that plays a role in
creating an image of ourselves as being
flawless and deserving of success is the
fact that our own past mistakes become
increasingly foggier the deeper they fall
into the crevasse of memory. Research
shows that past failures fade relatively
quickly from memory, whereas the
glorious moments of our career contin-
ue to shine forth.8
When top managers begin to acquire
this inflated image of themselves, it
becomes twice as difficult for them to
pinpoint the responsibility for failures
and mistakes in their own behavior.
When you’re the boss, it’s especially
easy to delegate blame to subordinates.
When everything is running smoothly,
people love to insist “I worked hard to
ensure that…” But as soon as any
problems arise, there’s usually a
palpable change in tone: “The unit made
mistakes…”
This phenomenon is the reason why I
ask specific questions about candi-
dates’ previous failures when I conduct
interviews for jobs that involve a great
deal of responsibility. An individual who
provides a convincing response to this
kind of question will clearly have an
advantage. Individuals who are capable
of reflecting on their own mistakes and
effectively communicating what they’ve
learned from those mistakes are
hands-down the most impressive
candidates. Unfortunately, most people
do the exact opposite, instead of
making use of a variety of techniques to
make themselves look good. Have you
ever seen one of those job applications
that have a seemingly endless list of
the candidate’s achievements? I have
to grin every time I see one, as I
consider this kind presentation to be
complete nonsense. I understand that
many outplacement consultants
recommend exactly this kind of
self-promotion, but I personally don’t
know anyone who takes it seriously.
Candidates like these demonstrate a
complete overestimation of themselves.
32
Failures are not flaws. Everyone
experiences them, and the more we risk,
the more often we’re going to fail. The
most important thing is to let your
failures help you grow into your
responsibilities.
At this point, we need to acknowledge
one more thing: in extreme situations,
accepting responsibility can weigh very
heavily on us. This can be the case, for
example, when our mistakes affect the
economic future of our employees and
their families. For this reason, the act
of taking responsibility should be
based on a process of conscious
decision-making.
If you notice that you’re not ready to
make those decisions and/or if you still
need to work on taking responsibility in
crisis situations, don’t automatically
assume it’s a bad thing. In contrast to
professional athletes, the advantage of
working in the business world is that
you have comparatively more time to
work on yourself. The most important
thing is that you make use of this time
and that you never stop learning. And
you can start right away.
After each failure, be part of the solution. Take responsibility for failure, not just for success. Doing so will allow you to take the first step toward achieving better results.
You will create trust and confidence in your ability to find solutions to problems, and thereby boost your problem solving ability and influence.
TAKE- AWAY
RESPONSIBILITYTake iT on
33
NOTES
(1) See Evening Standard, 22 January 2021: “Jurgen Klopp takes full responsibility for
Liverpool slump ahead of Manchester United FA Cup clash.”
(2) See Official Supporters Club Austria (OLSC Red Fellas Austria), 17 December 2020:
“Titelverteidigung: Jürgen Klopp Welttrainer des Jahres 2020” (tr. Defending the title:
Jürgen Klopp Voted World Coach of the Year 2020).
(3) In kicker online, 18 November 2020: “Alles schlecht“ (tr. Everything was awful) – Löw:
“Wir sind einfach irgendwo rumgelaufen“ (tr. We just ran around anywhere).
(4) In Der Tagesspiegel online, 18 November 2020: “Joachim Löw nach Debakel gegen
Spanien: Der Erschlaffte” (tr. Joachim Löw after the debacle against Spain: The wilted one).
(5) See Ola Svenson (1981): “Are we all less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers?” in
Acta Psychologica, Vol. 47, pp. 143–148.
(6) “When more than 90 percent of faculty members rate themselves as above-average
teachers, and two-thirds rate themselves among the top quarter, the outlook for much
improvement in teaching seems less than promising,” writes Berkeley professor and
educational-research scholar K. Patricia Cross with regard to her study conducted at the
University of Nebraska; cf. Kathryn Patricia Cross (1977): “Not can, but will college teaching
be improved?” New Directions for Higher Education, Vol. 17, pp. 1–15.
(7) In the Canadian study, 37 married couples were asked to provide information about who
made breakfast, did the dishes, went grocery shopping, took care of the kids, took out the
garbage, etc. The responses of both partners were added together so that the total sum
contained the contribution the wife considered to be hers and the contribution the husband
considered to be his. In other words, at least one of the two partners had overestimated
their contribution, in some cases by a considerable margin; see Michael Ross, Fiore Sicoly
(1979): “Egocentric biases in availability and attribution,” in: Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 322–336.
(8) This phenomenon is called “motivated reasoning” and describes a form of emotionally
biased way of thinking. A study published in the 1990s at Wesleyan University in Ohio
showed that 70 percent of university students who were asked to name the grades they got
in school were able to correctly recall the marks they received in grades 9 to 12. The study
showed that the time that had passed in the interval was not decisive in this regard.
However, the students displayed memory gaps when it came to poor grades: 89 percent
remembered getting As, but only 29 percent remembered getting Ds; see. Harry P. Bahrick,
Lynda K. Hall, Stephanie A. Berger (1996): “Accuracy and distortion in memory for high school
grades,” in Psychological Science, Vol. 7, No. 5, pp. 265–71.
34
QUeSTionS To ReFLeCT on
1. HOW MUCH DID YOU PERSONALLY CONTRIBUTE TO THE LAST PROJECT THAT WAS A RESOUNDING SUCCESS? DO YOU THINK YOUR TEAM MEMBERS SHARE THIS ASSESSMENT?
2. YOU HAVE TO ADMIT TO FAILURE: DID THE OTHERS MAKE A MISTAKE OR DID YOU MAKE ONE YOURSELF?
35
3. HOW DOES IT FEEL TO ADMIT A MISTAKE INSTEAD OF JUSTIFYING YOUR ACTIONS AND BEHAVIOR?
4. AN ERROR WAS MADE FOR WHICH YOU WERE NOT RESPONSIBLE. THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU COULD CHANGE TO MAKE SURE IT DOESN‘T HAPPEN AGAIN.
5. CONSIDER ALSO HOW MUCH HOUSEWORK YOU DO.
36
1. SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS
Project title Person(s) responsible
2. FAILED PROJECTS
Project title Person(s) responsible
Take a look at recent projects in your division that proved to be very
successful and make a note of who was responsible for the success. Now,
do the same thing with recent failures. Take a moment to think about it as
objectively as you can.
GOAL: SHOULDER YOUR SHARE OF THE RESPONSIBILITY!
eXeRCiSe 1: CHeCk YoUR SeLF-aSSeSSMenT
37
Think about a failed project or other failure within your business that
you don‘t feel responsible for. Write down the things that you would
do differently.
NOTES:
UNDER WHICH OF THE TWO HEADINGS DOES YOUR OWN NAME APPEAR MORE? WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS SAYS ABOUT YOUR OWN SELF-ASSESSMENT?
NOTES:
GOAL: BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION!
eXeRCiSe 2: LeaRninG FRoM FaiLUReS
38
What characterizes the scope of responsibility found at the career level that you
want to reach one day? Write down the key aspects.
NOTES:
GOAL: TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR CAREER!
eXeRCiSe 3: DeTeRMine THe SCoPe oF ReSPonSiBiLiTY
39
BOOKMARKLEONHARD MLODINOV: SUBLIMINAL
Psychologists around the world agree that along
with our conscious thoughts, we have a subliminal,
very active subconscious mind directing our
thoughts. Leonhard Mlodinow, who holds a PhD in
physics from the University of California at Berke-
ley, draws on a wide range of experiments and
studies in discussing the processes that take place in
our subconscious and the impact that they have. If
we we’re determined to overcome the obstacles that
keep us from living a rich and fulfilled life, then we
need to understand what goes on in this part of our
brain.Consider the overconfidence that has been demon-
strated by countless studies: In a survey of nearly
one million high school seniors, how is it possible
that all of them – without exception – believe they
possess at least “average” skills? A total of 60 percent
even saw themselves in the top ten. Why do 88
percent of doctors who diagnose pneumonia in a
patient think that their assessment is correct, even
though this is true in only 20 percent of cases?
Mlodinow also addresses the illusion of objectivity.
Fans of the losing team in a game will, overwhelm-
ingly, see rough play and a lack of fairness in the
game, while fans of the winning team will not. We
see a similar phenomenon with leadership qualities:
If we ourselves are ambitious, we believe that
determined individuals make the best leaders. If,
however, we see ourselves as friendly and extrovert-
ed, we think that the best leaders are those who
please others.
Leonhard Mlodinow became world famous as
Stephen Hawking’s co-author of A Briefer History of
Time.Leonhard Mlodinow: Subliminal. How your unconscious mind rules your behavior.
Vintage Books 2012.
39